


i regret the life i live with you but i cant live without it

by spendon



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Crushes, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:45:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2451797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spendon/pseuds/spendon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that Brendon hates Thanksgiving, really, he doesn't. It's just that he's kind of sick of being sick of spending it with the Smith family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i regret the life i live with you but i cant live without it

  The most dreadful, god awful month of the year for Brendon is November. It's autumn, sure, the leaves are turning a gorgeous arrangement of colors, there's pumpkin spice everything, all the nice scented candles are back in season, and it's the prep month for Christmas. It's the month that rolls of your tongue perfectly, but he kind of hates it.

  It's not the worst thing in the world for him, but it sure feels like it. Four years ago, Brendon moved out of his parents's household, or rather, he was kicked out and then managed to get his own place with the amount of money he had that just barely reached the payment. He's had to do things all by himself, had to started adulthood a little earlier than most kids, and he's got his buddies helping him, but it's just not enough. He almost misses the warmth of his mother hugging him every time he came home from school, the scent of his original home. The one he lives in now smells like unpaid rent and remorse, like emptiness. Spencer tends to sleepover sometimes when things get to loud at his place, or when he feels like comforting Brendon, but Brendon gets a little ache in his chest every time he just  _knows_ it's only to help him out and not feel so lonely in his shithole.

  It's the feeling of being pathetic, useless, helpless to yourself that you need it from your best friends, and he despises it with whatever burning emotions he had left in his heart. Spencer opening the door and bringing in groceries or gifts kills him inside, and he feels so bad, so horrible. He always wants to open his mouth and let the words spill, tell Spencer that he doesn't have to do this for him, that he can get things on his own, that he doesn't fucking  _need his help_. Only it's the fact that he does is what stops him every time.

  And it hurts every time he goes to spend the holidays with them. New Years, Valentine's Day (oh god,  _Valentine's Day._ Brendon can never get the guts to tell Spencer how badly he's crushing on him. It's just those moonlit eyes and silky smiles that make his heart pound in his chest), St. Patrick's Day, Easter, you get the gist of it. He knows he could always just make up with his family and actually, y'know, finally stop feeling like a piece of shit, but the cinder blocks chained around his ankles keep him in the same miserable spot he's in. 

  It's not that Brendon hates Thanksgiving, really, he doesn't. It's just that he's kind of sick of being sick of spending it with the Smith family. 

  Jealousy. Pure jealousy boils red hot in his blood every time he goes to their house and sees their perfect life, their perfect fucking family that has absolutely no problems with each other, it's all just smiles and love and nurture in the Smith household that Brendon fucking  _craves_ like the smoky warmth of a fire. He hates listening to the light tones and soft words and gentle kisses that everyone gives to each other, and god, he's so angry when he sees it that he's clenching his fists around his fork and knife, digging them into each and every bite of turkey like if it were alive at the very moment, he would murder it right then and there himself.

  Every time he looks up from his lap, across the table at Spencer, he catches the concerned glances, the electric-blue eyes flooded with worry and sympathy, the one's that look away each time he's caught, crushes him, kills Brendon inside. He knows he's hurting Spencer with this too, making him worry like this, making him  _care_ , and he always wishes that he could've been normal and respectable to his parents instead of the freak show he is now. He knows that now they would call him just a thin sheet of skin cast over bones with the mind of an ape, not believing in the Mormon lifestyle and living in a two room apartment like a slug.

  The warm looks from Mrs. Smith, the flame that curls around him and caresses his cheek with gentleness in its fingertips still burns and tingles in his skin, the wrath the flows through his veins icing him up inside, turning him into a glass just waiting to shatter. It doesn't help that they can tell.

  Because every single time Mr. and Mrs. Smith will send each other worried looks from across the table, every time Jackie and Crystal whisper with sideway glances in each other's ear, every time Spencer hooks his foot around Brendon's ankle underneath the table cloth, he feels like he's been dropped. They're too caring about him and he hates it. He hates himself for hating it. He wants to be apart of this family every day but he wants it to be his own, and he's so selfish for feeling like that. And whenever he tells this to Spencer, Spencer just nods understandably and hugs him.

  "I know, Bren," he says as Brendon buries his face in the crook of Spencer's neck, inhaling deeply to smell the boy he'd grown to love so dearly. "I'll try to make it better next year, I promise, I'm sorry."

  "I miss them, Spence," Brendon murmurs, voice muffled by the smooth skin of Spencer's neck and the soft hair that draped down near it. "They don't miss me. They hate me."

  "You're wrong, B. They love you, I know it, but maybe they just don't love you like I do."

  "I know," Brendon comments as quietly as he can, the heart in his chest pounding as he realizes Spencer had said I, and not we.


End file.
